Thermoplastic recording members are recording, or imaging members having a recording layer comprising a thermoplastic resin film in which an electrostatic pattern may be formed by the use of an electron beam, an electrostatic recording electrode, transferring of an electrostatic pattern or other electrophotographic processes. The recording layer is formed on an electrically conductive support or a photoconductive support. These thermoplastic recording members are used in recording or imaging systems including the step of imagewise wrinkling by forming frost or relief wrinkles on their surface. The wrinkles are produced by forming an electrostatic pattern on a surface of the recording layer and then softening the recording layer by means of heating or by exposing to solvent vapor.
Relief wrinkling produces a ridge-like wrinkle in the deformable layer at the boundaries or edges of charge no-charge locations, (lines of high potential gradient in the applied charge pattern) and is thus most suitable for the reproduction of high contrast subjects such as line copy or the outlines of solid area subjects. See for examples of relief wrinkling Glenn, Jr. U.S. Pat. No. 3,113,179; Norton U.S. Pat. No. 2,985,866; Dreyfoos, Jr., et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,055,006; Boldebuck U.S. Pat. No. 3,063,872 and Cusano et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,095,324.
Frost wrinkling produces a series of very small surface wrinkles over an entire charge area giving the image a frosted appearance with the frosted areas highly light scattering and appearing as dark portions on an imaging screen, in ordinary projection. Frost wrinkling is noted for its ability to produce high quality continuous tone as well as line copy images. For examples of frost wrinkling see Gunther et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,196,011, Mihajlov et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,196,008, and Gundlach and Claus. A Cyclic Xerographic Method Based on Frost Deformation, Phot. Sci. & Eng. 7.1 pp. 14-19 (1963).
In the thermoplastic recording members, the formation of the relief wrinkles or the frost wrinkles depends on the particular thermoplastic resin selected and its thickness. If the thermoplastic resin is easily deformable, fine and deep wrinkles may be formed by even a low charge density of the surface, so that records having high resolution and contrast may be obtained. Improvements in the deformation properties of the surface of the thermoplastic resin recording layer has been disclosed. For example, Japanese patent publication No. 19044/1968 describes a process of forming an overlayer having a softening point higher than that of inner layer so as to improve the deformation properties of the surface. The process requires actinic irradiation.
It has now been discovered in accordance with this invention that the deformation properties of the recording layer surface can be improved by using a recording layer of thermoplastic resin containing defined quantities of at least one selected silicone, fluorocarbon or chlorofluorocarbon oil.